Friday, October 11, 2013

How Majestic Is Your Name



PSALMS 8

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?

I read this as I am sitting on a bench at the beach in Duck NC (Right at the edge of the beach)watching this glourious sunrise (the very one in the picture in this post). I see the world wake and and i watch what God has given us for this day, come to greet us and I wonder.. am in complete awe and then I think, what a perfectly amazing day!

It does make me question though. How with all this glory before us can anyone doubt God's existence? But before I get all smug in my faith I also have to wonder, how can anyone (me) reject God's guidance? How can I look at all this slpendour around me and neglect my relationship with Him?

It's easy to point fingers at the non believers but much harder to accept your own failings and yet judgemental fool that I am, this is what I do. Bot not right this moment. Right this moment I sit in awe of what God has displayed for me.

Shauni

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

In You Do I Take Refuge

Psalms 7

7 O Lord my God, in you do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers and deliver me, 
2 lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, rending it in pieces, with none to deliver.

 Now this just struck me because so often this is how I feel. Like those around me have picked and pulled at me feeding not like lions but like crows, tearing little slices of my self until I am no longer able to become me.Parts of me are pushed so deep they become dormant. So asleep they are like the dead but waiting to rise again. Only I don't see that hope only despair. Wh? Because I have let the lions (or crows as it were) destroy me.

 14 Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies.
 15 He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made.
16 His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends.

 This passsage is so very powerful! First off he speaks to the liars. Lying is EVIL! There are no good lies! Sure a lie can momentarily make life easier but in the long run they destroy. You might appease someone for a moment but when the truth comes out - AND. IT. WILL! You have destroyed way more than you ever hoped to gain. The worst part about lying is you eventually believe your lies - turning you, the person, into a lie, walking evil, an abomination.

 DIGGING THE HOLE!

 We all know what happens when we try to get out of a hole we have dug. The edges start falling in around us, keepin us shovelin to find solid ground. We might make it out but we are going to be much dirtier coming out then when we were going in.

 And finally, What goes around comes around. Not Karma, just life. If we insist upon living a wicked and evil life then wicked and evil things are going to happen to us. Life is an amazing gift and we have been given an opportunity to serve an amazing God! To descend into evil after being given such a gift is abhorrent.

 It saddens me that I can relate so easily to this Psalm Somehow I have become one of the wicked. The hole I have dug has edges that are dirty and falling fast. I have accepted that I am not coming out clean but PRAISE GOD, I am coming out!! 

 And fortunately for us all, I have a God who has managed to make me white as snow!! 

Shauni

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Be Gracious to Me, Oh Lord

I know it looked like I had abandoned my study, but I haven't I promise! I was on vacation! On the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Duck to be exact. Every morning, I would get out of bed and hobble down the spiral stairs, then head to the beach! Where I sat and watched the sunrise.. and did my morning devotions! What an amazing way to start your day.

 But not only was it a perfect way to start a day, it offered a wonderful opportunity to commune with God


 2 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. 
3 My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O Lord—how long?

 WOW! I have spiraled far into depression. Having almost lost myself and yet I never thought to look to the Psalms for my answers. Unlike David, I turned first inward and shoved it all down. My head in the sand and then I took it upon myself to find a solution. Writing blogs about my loss of self. 

 But I am not alone! I forgot that I am not the first to struggle with depression nor am I the first to use "worldly" ways to heal. NO MORE!! I need to cast my troubles upon God's waters where I can watch the tide pull them away. 

 This verse was a true revelation to me.. it offered me a chance to seek God's guidance with my struggles. It gave me peace and it rejuivinated me. It's hard to explain how four simple lines can practically change your entire way of thinking and yet that is what happened.

&nbspEvery day we have to remember that we were put here to worship God.. and when we falter, there is only one way to turn. When we try using the ways of the world, we come up short. Feeling alone, confused, abandoned, incomplete, inferior.. the list goes on. Only God can give us the power to go on! The knowledge that we are doing the right thing and are living for the right reason. And if we stumble, if we lose ourselves to languishing, remember.. don't try and fix it yourself, turn to God.. offer yourself up to God and let Him lead you out of the darkness. Which might include counseling or talking about it.. but don't "self medicate" turn to God first! 

Shauni